Complex products such as airplanes, automobiles, and computers typically go through both a design stage and a manufacturing stage. During the design stage, design engineers plan the product using specifications, drawings, plans, and models that include descriptive information, graphical information, numerical information, mathematical information, etc. During the manufacturing stage, manufacturing engineers use the design engineers' drawings, plans, and models to build the product itself. Depending on how complex the product is, the manufacturing process is broken down and organized into more manageable portions, so that the complex product can be built efficiently and effectively.
Currently, complex product design is often aided through the use of computers and computer software that allow for design data input, processing, and modeling. In addition, computers and computer software allow for the reuse of design information (e.g., so that a design engineer does not have to “reinvent the wheel” each time he or she goes to design a new product). For example, design engineers may use computer-aided-drafting/design (CAD) software to help in designing drawings and plans. Some CAD products also have modeling capabilities that use attribute information from product/part designs to build three-dimensional models that can be used for testing and other uses. An example of such a software package is CATIA, by Dassault Systèmes S.A., of France. CATIA is an integrated suite of computer aided design (CAD), computer aided engineering (CAE), and computer aided manufacturing (CAM) applications for product definition and simulation. In general, software packages like CATIA allow manufacturers to facilitate industrial design processes from the pre-project phase through detailed design, analysis, simulation, assembly, and maintenance.
On the manufacturing side, part/product attribute information from computer generated drawings, plans, bills of materials, and models may be used to create work instructions and manufacturing process plans for use by manufacturing engineers. However, it is not always easy to capture such part/product attribute information for this type of use, and several data management issues may arise with respect to how data is collected an organized. An example of specific part/product attribute information relates to fasteners and the holes through which those fasteners fit. In some existing technologies, fastener collector files are used to manage large quantities of fastener and hole attribute information. However, because of the way it is configured, the information in these fastener collector files is not conducive in allowing manufacturing engineers to conduct process planning and work instruction authoring activities. For example, as shown in FIG. 1, attribute data in the fastener collectors files may be captured in a format that is difficult for humans to work with. It may also be incompatible with manufacturing-side computerized processes.